


got a fascination (with your presentation)

by spellingmynamewrong



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Asian Sirius Black, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Meet-Cute, Oxford, Oxford interviews, and remus falls in love, bubble tea is drunk, pho is eaten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24908830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellingmynamewrong/pseuds/spellingmynamewrong
Summary: When Remus thought of Oxford as a child, he envisioned turrets, laughter, and an unnameable, unforgettable magic. He did not envision vomiting his breakfast all over himself while standing in the halls of St. Catherine’s College.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 28
Kudos: 173





	got a fascination (with your presentation)

**Author's Note:**

> i honestly don’t know where this came from. i just thought it’d be really cute and fun to write. the title of this fic is taken from "crush" by tessa violet. also, some hopefully helpful explanations of various terms i use throughout the fic:
> 
> \- uniq - a university access scheme run by oxford. it’s basically a week-long summer program where students from state schools (the british equivalent of public schools in the u.s.) take courses at oxford, learn about the admissions process, etc. it’s free and pretty selective. more information can be found here, at the official website: https://www.uniq.ox.ac.uk/. 
> 
> \- catz/st catz - st. catherine’s college, one of oxford’s constituent colleges. the modern-style college.
> 
> \- interviews - oxford interviews are notorious for being very, very difficult. unlike american college interviews, they’re headed by an oxford tutor and not an alum and focus much more on discerning your learning style and how you think through an in-depth discussion of the subject you’ve applied for instead of your personality/your extracurriculars. usually, you’ll have two to three interviews. 
> 
> \- spoons - nickname for wetherspoons, a pub in oxford
> 
> \- tutorials - small sessions held with a tutor, in which you discuss your subject and your problem set/most recent essay in depth. an interview can be looked at as a mock tutorial, almost.
> 
> \- westminster school - one of the best private schools in britain. they are traditionally a day school, but they have a boarding wing.
> 
> \- raffles - one of the best private schools in singapore. 
> 
> \- sixth form - post-gcse education, in which brits prepare for their a-levels/uni apps/etc.
> 
> \- a first - first class honours; the highest degree classification at oxford
> 
> \- ucas track - the decision notification system for university offers/rejections in britain
> 
> i hope you enjoy this! it’s honestly just an excuse to write remus/sirius fluff where neither of them will die for like, at least seventy years, and none of their friends will be killed or tortured by a dark lord.

When Remus thought of Oxford as a child, he envisioned turrets, laughter, and an unnameable, unforgettable magic. He did not envision vomiting his breakfast all over himself while standing in the halls of St. Catherine’s College. 

Granted, he hasn’t actually vomited yet, but at the rate things are going, he will in the next five minutes. Fortunately, he’s fairly certain that a good half of people at interviews feel exactly the same way; unfortunately, he’s also fairly certain that no one else will actually do it besides him. He tries to ground himself, gripping the edges of his seat tightly and counting to ten. _I see a tiled floor_ , he tells himself. _I see a grandfather clock. I see a very pretty courtyard. I see clouds. I see my imminent, inevitable death._

Nope, that will _not_ work. 

He turns to his second avenue of possibility—praying for a quick and merciful end. Maybe he’ll be struck by lightning, or even better, ravaged by an angry werewolf. _Here lies poor Remus Lupin_ , his gravestone will say. _Killed tragically in a werewolf attack. He fought very, very bravely_. It’ll sound a hell of a lot better than _Here lies Remus Lupin, an idiot who couldn’t make his way through Oxford interviews without dying of despair._

“Hey, no need to look like you’re being tortured,” he hears a laugh, and he immediately snaps to attention, because _oh God someone was watching him break down_ and also _what the fuck,_ why _was someone watching him have a nervous breakdown_ and then, a beat later, _why is this stranger incredibly, offensively gorgeous._

The stranger has long, black hair, piercing brown eyes, and the sharpest cheekbones Remus has ever seen. He’s dressed in a perfectly fitted suit jacket, though he seems to have unbuttoned his shirt slightly, revealing collarbone and _oh God is he attracted to collarbone now, how deprived_ is _he_ , and, strangely enough, what appear to be jeans. It shouldn’t go together at all, but on the stranger, it looks perfect. Remus is immediately self-conscious of his sweater vest. He also feels an immediate, deep hate for the stranger.

“Did someone murder your dog or something?” the stranger asks, stepping towards Remus, who’s _definitely_ not doing his best to send over his most powerful death glare. Distantly, Remus notes his unbelievably posh accent. London, probably, and definitely not Hackney. “I mean, that’s the only thing I can think of that could make someone that angry. I get it, I swear! When my dog died last year, I hated basically everyone and everything on Earth. It’s not fair, honestly, that there are kidnappers and the lot running around free while dogs are dying every day. I wonder if anyone’s thought of trying to make dogs immortal before. Though I suppose that brings in ethics, and all that other rubbish, and—”

“Could you please stop talking?” Remus says miserably, more to himself than anyone else. Fortunately, the stranger does finally stop talking about dogs. Unfortunately, he seems to take this as a sign that not only should he move closer to Remus, but he should actually take the seat next to him.

“Sorry,” the stranger replies, softer than before. “Are you doing alright? I swear I wasn’t staring or anything; I was just passing by, and you looked like you needed someone to talk to.”

If Remus was smarter, he would nod a thank you, and the stranger would be on his merry way. However, because Remus is not only an absolute idiot, but also, apparently, lacking any social skills or impulse control at all, what actually comes out of his mouth is “I don’t need help from some privileged pretty boy, thanks.” A moment later, he grimaces in horror.

Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on the way one looks at it—the stranger only laughs. “Maybe not,” he says. “You’re looking a lot better. Here for interviews too?”

Remus nods.

“What course?”

“Chemistry,” Remus says warily. 

“Ooh, a fan of mixing and blending?”

“More equations, honestly. Though the explosions are a plus,” Remus adds, and immediately shuts his mouth in horror. “I mean—” 

Luckily, the stranger laughs again. “I’m serious.”

“You’re here for what?” Remus asks, because he has a collective total of three brain cells.

“My name is Sirius,” the stranger—Sirius—smoothly corrects. “And I’m land econ, obviously. Capitalistic trappings and all that.”

“But Oxford doesn’t offer land econ,” Remus notes stupidly. 

“Correct, my dear friend.” Somehow, from Sirius’s mouth, the words manage to sound like actual praise instead of the pitying sarcasm that it is. 

“I’m Remus,” he says, and prays that Sirius doesn’t ask why a parent would ever subject their child to a name like Remus. He’s not exactly up for explaining that his parents were once hippies who believed in free love and all that jazz and lived with him in an honest-to-God commune until Remus was four, began bleeding randomly, was taken to the doctor, and then was swiftly diagnosed with leukemia. 

Thankfully, Sirius doesn’t even raise an eyebrow—though, come to think of it, he really has no right to. “Remus! A name perfect for us classicists.”

“Caecilius est in horto,” Remus remarks, almost as a reflex. Some things you never unlearn, especially when those things are ten years of Latin. 

“Caecilius est in horto, indeed.”

For a moment, Remus and Sirius sit in blissful silence. The next moment, Remus realizes that his interview begins in five minutes, and inadvertently begins inwardly panicking again. Somehow, despite his best attempts to hide his terror, Sirius notices.

“It won’t be that bad,” Sirius says. “They’ll push you and make you feel like absolute shite, but if they do, that means they think you’re good enough to be a student. You’ll survive.”

Remus can only silently nod. He picks at his trousers, wondering if he could manage to fake an injury that would get him out of interviews altogether. Maybe he could pretend to be recovering from wisdom teeth surgery. 

“Mr. Lupin?” The door opens, revealing a kind-looking blonde woman. “Please come in. The tutors are ready to see you.”

“Remus Lupin,” Sirius breathes out, almost gleefully. “Good luck, wolf boy! You’ll knock their socks off.”

Remus ducks his head and wills himself to not blush. _It won’t be so bad_ , he tells himself firmly. _You’ll survive_.

* * *

It is _exactly_ that bad. Remus had tripped over his words, had to constantly correct himself, and even, worst of all, made the tutors laugh at one point. He hadn’t even said anything particularly funny. When he exits the room, he notes that only around thirty minutes have passed, but he feels as though he’s been trapped for hours. He also notes, with a twinge of disappointment— _disappointment?_ —that Sirius is gone, though he supposes he couldn’t expect for him to wait all that time. 

There’s not much to do, at this point, except head back to his room, bury his face in his pillow, and apologize to anyone who’s ever believed in him. Why on Earth did he think that he, Remus Lupin, could actually get an Oxford offer? He thinks, bitterly, of UNIQ, of the summer where he believed that things were actually looking up. He thinks of his predicted grades, of his carefully crafted recommendation letter, of the personal statement he’d revised for a month straight, and sighs. _Failure_ , people will think when they see him. _Wasted potential_. He’s going to go to Durham, and he’s going to spend the next three years thinking of Oxford, of college balls and boat races and tutorials. He’s never going to conduct profound research, become a professor, or discover a new element. He’s going to muddle his way through uni and do absolutely nothing with his degree, or, worse yet, work in pharmaceuticals. He slumps down on the ground and forces himself to breathe. 

“For someone who looks so quiet, your thoughts are the loudest I’ve ever heard,” a voice announces. Before Remus has the time to outwardly disagree and privately agree with the first half of the statement, the owner of the voice has sat down next to him. It’s Sirius, again.

“Drink,” Sirius says, handing Remus a container. He wonders, briefly, if Sirius is trying to poison him, before figuring that if he does, it’ll be a relief. He drinks.

The liquid is sweet and cold, and as he drinks, he realizes there’s little pearls in it.

“It’s bubble tea! There’s four different shops here just for it!” Sirius beams. “I got jasmine. It reminded me of you.” He has dimples, Remus realizes with growing horror. _And he smiles at you like you’re the only person who matters_.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“Lucky guess,” Sirius shrugs. “Also, there’s not many people still hanging around Catz this time of day. I think a lot of people decided to go to Spoons. I know my mates—the ones from my college—all did.”

“Why didn’t you?” Remus gnaws on his bottom lip. 

“I can always go to Spoons next year,” Sirius says, and how Remus _aches_ to have that confidence, the confidence that he’ll be here in the fall. Looking at Sirius, though, Remus almost understands. He has the air of someone who has never needed, never wanted, for something he couldn’t have. 

“Oh,” Remus settles for. He feels the conversation drawing to a close, but for some reason, he doesn’t want it to. “What course are you again?”

“Religion,” Sirius grins. “God-fearing, God-studying, and all that.”

“I thought you said you were Classics?”

“Maybe I’m both. Translating texts one day, pondering the mysteries of existence the next.”

“A true renaissance man,” Remus says dryly.

“Exactly! Now, what I find much more interesting is why you’re studying chemistry. I would have pegged you for English Literature, with the sweater vest and all.”

“Chemistry is a perfectly fine subject,” Remus crosses his arms over his chest.

“I’m not doubting that. But why are _you_ studying it?”

“I—” 

It’s hard to describe, really. His best subject has never been chemistry. He’s better at writing, at analyzing texts—he’s even better at biology, and he hates biology. But when it came time to choose his A-levels, he chose chemistry nonetheless. Maybe it’s the maths in it, one of the only parts he can usually understand, or maybe it’s that he’ll always learn something new from it, because he _isn’t_ naturally good at it. Because he’s not good at understanding the smallest particles in existence, but he keeps coming back to them anyway, with a thirst he can’t truly explain.

“I like how—solid it is,” he settles for. “I love English, and I love history, but I think I’d go insane if I studied them for three years. I like knowing what’s right and wrong, mostly. And I still get to understand the universe a bit, or as much as anyone can.”

Sirius hums, as if he understands. “Tell me something about chemistry.”

“Like what?”

“Anything.”

“Some scientists think that there are particles smaller than quarks,” Remus says. “They’re called preons, though the problem is that they aren’t really proven by physics, at least not yet.”

“Russian nesting dolls all the way down,” Sirius smiles.

“What?”

“The universe is just Russian nesting dolls. Smaller and smaller, until the pieces are so small that you don’t even notice when they disappear underneath your mother’s horrible gold-plated bed.”

“Oddly specific.”

“When my housekeeper found the doll, my mother yelled at me for days. Apparently it was priceless, though the logical conclusion from that is why anyone would give priceless antiques to a seven-year-old to play with. Anyway, tell me more.”

“About what?”

“Chemistry, of course. Educate this ignorant privileged pretty boy—” _Remus is going to die of shame, isn’t he._ “—about the workings of the galaxy.”

“Okay, well. Do you know what electron orbitals are?”

“Go around the atoms and all that.”

“Yeah. So when you were a kid, I’m sure you wondered why some things were colorful and some weren’t. And it’s because of these electron orbitals. When you have orbitals at different energy levels, when light with some level of energy—and some color—associated with it hits those atoms, if that light energy is the same as the energy difference in those orbitals, an electron will jump up to an orbital with more energy, absorbing the light, which absorbs the color too, making that object have the opposite color of the light that was absorbed. And—I’m boring you, aren’t I?”

“On the contrary, Remus Lupin,” Sirius says. “You’re absolutely fascinating.”

Remus remembers the first chemistry book he read—a kitchen chemistry book chock-full of experiments. He’d read it while he was in the hospital, recovering from his second round of chemotherapy. According to his mother, she brought him new books, paperbacks and picture books alike, every day, but he always gravitated towards the kitchen chemistry book. _You read it over and over again until it was dog-eared_ , she recounted. _You begged us to buy you another one, and when we did, you dog-eared that one too._

He also remembers, too clearly, the days after he finally was allowed to go to school, when he learned quickly that everyone knew about “that poor Lupin boy,” when he was alternatively avoided like the plague or treated like he would spontaneously combust at any second.

He remembers when the avoidance stopped and the sneers and beatings began, when he made the mistake of being caught holding hands with Dylan Hughes, when Darren Morgan punched him, _you know what we do to queers_ , _Lupin_ , when his nose broke and never quite healed right, leaving him with a scar across his face that no cream will ever remove.

He remembers the day he decided that his one goal for the remainder of his teen years would be to leave, leave St. Asaph behind for good, for somewhere no one would ever look at him like he would drop dead at any second or like he had some incurable, horrible disease. So. No one has ever called him fascinating, or at least not in a way that’s seemed good, almost kind. But Sirius—he looks too kind, too happy to be joking, at least entirely joking.

“I don’t think so,” he says simply, and hopes that’s the end of it. Sirius, though, cocks his head.

“No, I think I’m right. You’re fascinating, Remus Lupin,” Sirius says, standing up and brushing himself off, even though there are no stains to be seen on his still-impeccable suit jacket. “Got any plans tonight?”

If Remus was smarter, he would say, _yes, I do, I’m going out with some mates_ or something normal like that, and then he’d go back to his room in St. Catz and reread his chemistry coursework and call his mother and go to bed at an unreasonably early hour. But Sirius, apparently, makes him lose brain cells. Instead, he says, “Absolutely none.”

“Great,” Sirius smiles. “I haven’t been able to really explore High Street yet, and no adventure is complete without a companion.”

“Well hello there, Rose Tyler,” Remus grins, and doesn’t even pretend to hide his laugh at Sirius’s very visible offense. 

Even if Sirius claims he hasn’t been able to explore High Street yet, he seems to be intimately familiar with its workings already. He weaves through the crowd naturally, like he’s lived in Oxford all his life. He seems to be walking with a purpose, though, until he pulls Remus through a corridor.

“We’re going to the Covered Market?” Remus asks.

“We’re _at_ the Covered Market,” Sirius corrects. “They have the _best_ cookies here.” It’s a testament to Remus’s deteriorating sanity that he doesn’t even question the prospect of cookies for dinner anymore. Instead, he lets Sirius drag him by the hand through the market until they reach a bright-red stall with a sign that says “BEN’S COOKIES.”

Sitting down with a triple-chocolate cookie, Remus does have to admit that Sirius is right, at least, on one thing. These cookies are easily the best he’s ever had, gooey and warm in all the right places. He bites into one, and embarrassingly, actually whimpers. Sirius, though, just smiles again.

“I told you! They’re fantastic.”

“Maybe,” Remus acquiesces. 

“Now, what’s a nice boy like you doing in a town like this?”

“Sirius, you brought me here.”

“In _Oxford_ , I mean,” Sirius clarifies. “Why Oxford?”

“Because it’s Oxford?” 

“Well, yes, it’s Oxford, but why not Cambridge? Hell, why not fuck off to the other side of the world and try for Harvard or something? Other unis exist.”

 _Because it’s Oxford_ , Remus’s mind supplies again. Because when he set his sights on finally getting the hell out of St. Asaph, he’d always thought it would be through Oxford. Because he’d dreamed of the tutorials, the professors, the people he’d meet. Because Oxford had history, had so much of it that it was hard to find anything that wasn’t connected to it somehow. Because of UNIQ, because of everyone he’d met, because of the way that he’d finally felt, somehow, like he belonged, like he could be something besides the sad weird kid whose own cells hated him. 

“I did UNIQ last summer,” he says, because everything else just makes him sound even sadder than he already is. “And the people were just brilliant, you know? I wanted something like that every day, afterwards, not just for one week.”

Sirius takes a large bite out of his chocolate chip cookie. “Better answer than most people. You can’t believe how many people I’ve asked today who could barely say anything besides ‘it’s Oxford.’ If a tutor asked them that in an interview, they’d be fucked.”

And of course, Sirius has asked loads of people this. He’s probably asked loads of people to come explore High Street with him, given loads of people bubble tea and smiled like them like no one else, nothing else, in the universe mattered. Remus wills himself to not hurt too much, and sucks in a deep breath instead. “Well, what about you?”

“What _about_ me?”

“Why Oxford?”

“Oh, have I got a story for you, Remus Harrison Lupin.”

“Harrison?”

“Well, you’ve got to have a middle name. You look a bit like a Harrison, proper and all that.”

Remus looks down at his sweater vest with a hole near the left sleeve. Somehow, he really doubts that it screams “Harrison.”

“My middle name’s John,” Remus sighs.

“John?” Sirius looks delighted, for whatever reason. “Your parents could have given you _any_ name, and they decided to name you Remus John? I guess the Lupin part couldn’t have been helped, but they really woke up one morning and thought, ‘gee, our baby boy really looks like one of the founders of Rome, but you know what? He should have a _normal_ middle name. Thomas or Harrison, maybe? No, you know what? It should be John, the most dull name on the face of this cursed planet.’ I want to meet your parents, by the way. I’m sure they’re incredible.”

Remus chooses to ignore the last part. “My grandfather’s name was John.”

“Oh, er, sorry.” Sirius, at least, has the good manners to look ashamed.

“It’s fine,” Remus says. “Besides, I don’t think someone named _Sirius_ should be talking.”

“I’ll have you know that nearly everyone in my family is named after a star,” Sirius sniffs. “I’m special.”

“And what’s your middle name? Orion? Pollux?”

“Oh, I don’t have one,” Sirius says. “Not really a thing in Singapore—well, I suppose I _do_ have one, technically, but it’s just my Anglicized Chinese name.”

“I thought you said everyone’s got to have a middle name.”

“No, I said _you’ve_ got to have a middle name. Who’s ever heard of a Remus Lupin without a middle name?”

“Who’s ever even heard of a Remus Lupin?” Remus laughs. 

“I have,” Sirius says, almost comically serious. “Anyway, why Oxford, you asked. Suppose I couldn’t get away with ‘it’s Oxford’ this time?”

“Not after all of this.”

“Well, I’ve got a long tale for you then, Remus. It all started when I was born, screaming myself hoarse, on a rainy November night in Bukit Timah.”

“I’m sure you could start a _bit_ later than that.”

“Unfortunately, my dear Remus, I cannot.”

Remus _will not blush_ at this ridiculous boy calling him “dear.” 

“Anyway, as I was saying, I was born on a rainy November night in Bukit Timah to my _wonderful_ parents, Walburga and Orion, who somehow managed to raise two children without ever learning how to actually properly parent.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Remus says, because that seems right to say.

“Don’t be. They’re fucking wankers, but I don’t have to deal with them anymore.” And there’s a story there, Remus is sure, but if Sirius isn’t going to elaborate, he won’t press either. Remus has too many stories of his own that he doesn’t want to tell. 

“Still,” Remus says simply. 

“In any case, from a young age, my parents instilled in me three virtues: one, never talk back to an authority figure, two, respect our heritage and family traditions, and three, never forget where I came from.”

“That sounds a bit like the rules of a cult.”

“Believe me, a cult would be a fucking tea party compared to my family. Anyway, being that my family is fucking horrible, after the age of four, I dedicated myself to ignoring these virtues whenever possible.”

“Sirius, I don’t really see how this is relevant?”

“Oh, it is. See, virtue number two, respecting our heritage, whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean, included getting the _proper_ education to become a _proper_ heir. Now, dear old mum and dad actually met at Oxford, so naturally, that was where I was supposed to go too. I see the look on your face— _Sirius, could you really be so unimaginative to go to Oxford just because your parents did?_ Non, mon cher. The opposite, actually. I swore up and down that I wouldn’t even apply, because if any place would actually voluntarily be associated with my parents, it wasn’t any place I wanted to go to.”

“I’m beginning to think that you go against anything your parents do or say just for the principle of it,” Remus says dryly.

“Have you been listening? Of course I do. Anyway, I was set on not applying to Oxford—not applying to any of my parents’ approved uni choices, especially NUS, in fact, and just applying to American schools—but then my college took us all on an Oxford open day a few years back. I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly—probably for everyone to be a right tosser—but it wasn’t what I found. Anyway, I thought it over, and I realized that _not_ applying just because my parents went would actually give them _more_ control over me, especially since I actually liked Ox once I visited, so I decided to apply anyway.”

“Some real self-rationalization there.”

“ _Anyway_. I wasn’t going to let them have the satisfaction, though, so I made it _very_ clear that I wasn’t applying to Oriel—their college back when they were young enough to care more about getting an education than keeping our family line pure and all that crap—or for PPE. I’ll die before they make a politician out of me. I was between Wadham and Catz for a while, but I figured that I’d hate having to rub elbows with fucking tourists every day, so I chose Catz in the end. And now I’m here.” Sirius grins, but there’s something strained in it. For whatever reason, Remus wants to see a real smile again.

“You know, when I first saw you, I figured you’d be Christ Church or something, what with the suit jacket and all,” Remus muses, enjoying the offense that spreads across Sirius’s face.

“Why would I be at Catz interviews if I—you know what, I can’t even dignify that with a response,” Sirius huffs. Remus shrugs. “Well, in any case—”

“Sorry, boys,” a voice says from above, and Remus looks up to find a young, slightly frazzled woman. “We’re closing soon.”

“Thanks for letting us know,” Sirius says, pulling himself to his feet. “We’d better be off then. Oh, I heard there’s a decent Vietnamese place somewhere. I haven’t had pho in _ages_. The food at school is absolute shite—honestly, it’s like they’ve never heard of seasoning. Are you hungry?”

Remus has never had pho in his life. “Sounds great.”

They walk companionably to the restaurant, which is apparently called Banana Tree. Sirius fills the nighttime air with chatter, about how Percy Pigs are apparently extremely underrated, how his friends from his college—apparently named James and Peter—are both at Spoons, probably getting ridiculously drunk, how Peter is “a rotten traitor” for applying to Hertford instead of Catz “but we love him anyway, our Pete,” how he _really_ misses good char siu, because “the stuff you find in London is horrible, it’s like they’ve never heard of actual spices.” While Sirius talks, Remus studies him, this beautiful, confusing boy who seems like something out of a fantasy novel. 

Remus doesn’t remember much of his childhood. He thinks that might be for the better; when he was younger, he would try to ask his father about it, who would be frustratingly vague. _You were tall for your age_ , he would say. _You loved riding your red bicycle_. And that would be all. His mother would be worse—often, she would say nothing at all, simply touch his face, gently, like he was a porcelain doll. But he remembers one day, when he was about six or so. It had been a beautiful day in June, and there had been flowers—peonies, maybe, blooming bright pink across the Welsh countryside. He’d tripped backwards into a pile of them, and his mother had rushed forward, terrified, to find him smiling with glee, bathing in the sun’s rays and the beauty of a summer afternoon. Most of all, he remembers the warmth. Looking at Sirius, he feels like he’s back in that summer day again, basking in the untouchable, wonderful warmth of the sun. And horribly, he wants to stay in it forever, with this beautiful, confusing boy who’s probably straight anyway.

“We’re here!” Sirius announces cheerfully, and never before has Remus been so glad for an interruption. _Banana Tree_ , reads a black banner on top of the restaurant. “To be honest, I don’t actually know how good the food is, but Google says it’s got good reviews. Are you up for it?”

Remus nods, because he doesn’t think there’s any other response, especially when the only other restaurant he knows in Oxford is a Cornish pasty place, and he’s not very keen on having one for dinner.

Apparently, Google is good enough at curating reviews, because the smell that hits him the moment he walks in is absolutely wonderful, and if anything could _smell_ magical, this restaurant does. 

The wait is surprisingly short, and Sirius manages to charm the waitress into giving them a table by the window instead of in the middle of the crowd. When the time to order comes, Sirius, thankfully, orders for him, after Remus nods that he’s fine with anything. 

“So, tell me about yourself,” Sirius says, batting his eyelashes, after they’ve both settled in with warm bowls of pho and papaya salad, which Sirius swears is absolutely amazing. Remus eyes the plate of thinly sliced vegetables and fruit dubiously; he’s not a big fan of the fruit on its own. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Remus says, scooping up a forkful of noodles. It’s the best thing he’s tasted in weeks. 

“Takes one to know one. Where are you from, Remus Lupin? Got any siblings? What’s your star sign, my friend?” Sirius cocks an eyebrow, as if to say _well?_ , and Remus sighs. 

“I’m Welsh. I grew up in St. Asaph—you won’t have heard of it, it’s tiny, and you wouldn’t want to hear of it either. It’s dull as shite. No siblings; my mum couldn’t take any after me. And I have no bloody clue.”

“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“It was impossible.”

“No, what’s impossible is that I’ve bared my heart to you—told you my deepest, darkest family secrets, revealed my hidden motivations—and I know absolutely nothing about you.”

“I didn’t ask for you to bare your heart,” Remus grumbles. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“What’s your school like?”

“Like any sixth form, I’d expect. Trashed bathrooms, self-important wankers, rotting food, even more rotten teachers. What’s yours like—I expect you go to Eton or something, don’t you?”

“Er, not exactly,” Sirius says, and for the first time Remus has known him in this short day, he actually looks embarrassed. “Westminster, actually.”

And there’s a name Remus knows, because every obsessive Oxbridge applicant in Britain knows what Westminster is. Because he knows that more than half of Westminster’s applicants get offers, have been coached from birth, will probably become MPs someday, creating the next set of problems for the British public to deal with and drinking champagne while doing it. And Remus pictures his crumbling sixth form, with the second floor girls’ bathroom that’s overflowed too many times to count because Year 10s keep clogging it up for fun, with his chemistry teacher who tries fruitlessly, most days, to get anyone to participate, with the kids who smoke in the hallways because half the teachers can’t be arsed to stop them anymore.

“You go to Westminster, and you still almost didn’t apply to Oxford?” Remus says incredulously. 

“I told you about my family already,” Sirius shifts uncomfortably. 

“No, but—look, at my sixth form, half the kids are on their way to dropping out before A-levels. Do you know how few students actually go on to uni and don’t just fuck around in St. Asaph forever? I’m the first person to even be invited to interview in years, and I don’t know _anyone_ from my town who’s gone to Oxford or Cambridge. My mum didn’t even want me to come today because she didn’t want me to be disappointed, because the inevitability will be that I get rejected, and I’ll go to Durham or Cardiff and I’ll probably be fine in the end, but it’s not Oxford, and I’ll remember that I never made it to Oxford no matter how hard I tried and how little I slept and how much I wanted. And you go to Westminster, where, I don’t know, you spend your time playing fucking _croquet_ and having tea parties with the Queen of England, and everyone still ends up at Oxford or Cambridge or Imperial or LSE, and you’ll all be wealthy and famous and host society balls. And you just—you were just willing to throw all of that away, and just because of your family?”

“I got disowned when I was sixteen, if that’s any show of how shitty my family is,” Sirius says curtly. “Also, where did you get the impression that we’re having tea parties with the Queen?”

“I—I’m sorry.”

“Nah, you didn’t know,” Sirius says with a sigh. He takes a long sip from his water and swallows heavily. “Technically, it’s not really formal yet; I think my father still thinks I’m going to run back to Singapore the moment I graduate from uni and beg him for money. Joke’s on him, Uncle Alphard’s written me into his will to inherit his entire estate.”

“How did it happen?” Remus asks, and then, immediately after, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry or anything.”

“It’s fine. Honestly, the worst part is that nothing really happened. Nothing more than usual, at least. I just—I couldn’t take it anymore. If you’ve ever read Plath—who am I kidding, of course you’ve read Plath, you probably read poetry in your free time. Oh, don’t look at me like that, you _do_. In that book she wrote—”

“The Bell Jar.”

“Right. See, I knew you read it! There’s this one part where she talks about seeing all the different ways her life could play out, like fruits on a fig tree. And she’s terrified, because she just can’t pick one. I think, that summer, I—I felt the same way, except the opposite, I guess, because I only saw one way my life could play out, and that would be exactly like my father, going to Oxford and studying PPE and working in real estate until I turned fifty and marrying some _respectable_ Chinese girl and ignoring my children just to make so much money that I could drown in it. And I hated it. So one day, when my mother brought up another girl that she thought I would make a _darling_ match with, I snapped. I couldn’t take it anymore, and not just because I’m gayer than a fucking rainbow. I just left. I bought a ticket at the airport for the next flight out of Singapore, showed up at Heathrow at two in the morning, and asked my best mate James if I could live with him.”

“And he said yes?” Remus wills himself not to fixate on the fact that Sirius is gay, because it’s probably worse to get turned down by one of the most wonderful people you’ve ever met because of your personality and not just your sexuality. 

“That’s James for you. Also, I think his parents always wanted more children, except they couldn’t have any after James, so they were happy to have me. I’ve got my own room and everything. It’s wonderful. And they let me stay at Westminster; they’re footing the bill. I don’t think I could ask for better friends, honestly.”

“Do you miss it at all?” Remus asks.

“Not my parents. But—I miss my brother.”

“You have a brother?”

“Yeah. Name’s Regulus; he’s sixteen, going to be seventeen soon. He went to Westminster with me until I left home. My parents pulled him out the week after I ran away. He goes to Raffles now, back in Singapore; my parents will probably try to get him to go for Cambridge and not Oxford, now that they know I’m trying for here. Or maybe they’re just going to have him apply here anyway and pretend that I don’t exist.”

“Do you still talk to him at all?”

“A bit. He has my WhatsApp. He could call me if he wants, I think. He just doesn’t, really. He’s never been the rebellious one,” Sirius laughs bitterly. “Whatever mummy says, Reggie does.”

Remus tries to imagine cutting all ties with his family, running away in the middle of the night and hoping that someone will take him in. He can’t. As much as his parents fuss, as much as he finds himself annoyed out of his mind at them almost every day, he knows, from the bottom of his heart, that he loves them, and they love him too. When he came out to them, they’d simply hugged him, and his mother had confided in him, later, that she’d suspected ever since he was a child and declared that he wanted to marry both Billie Piper and David Tennant after watching _Doctor Who_. 

“I’m really sorry,” he says, because what else can he say?

“It’s fine, honestly,” Sirius says. “I mean, it’s been more than a year now. And I’ve got friends at Westminster, at least. I can’t ask for more than James and Peter; they’re the most loyal friends I’ve ever had.”

“Wish I had someone like that,” Remus snorts involuntarily.

“Don’t tell me the people in Wales don’t like you,” Sirius says, and it takes Remus a good minute to realize that Sirius isn’t joking.

“I think most kids at my sixth form dislike me,” Remus says with a shrug. “They think I’m stuck-up for trying to be what I’m not.”

“And what aren’t you?”

“Someone who goes to Oxford.”

“Well, why can’t you be that?” Sirius asks, looking suddenly fierce. 

“I told you before. It just—it doesn’t happen, not for kids from my town.”

“It’ll happen for you,” Sirius says, with such certainty that Remus almost laughs. “What? Don’t look at me like that. If you’ve made it this far along, it means they have faith in you. And you did UNIQ last summer too—that’s hard as well. Look, you clearly care about chemistry, and you clearly love Oxford, and you can clearly put both of these together, so tell me, why can’t you go to Oxford and studying chemistry and name an element lupintiam?”

“How did you know I want to discover an element?” 

“Don’t try to avoid the question.”

“I fucked up at interviews already. I’m toast.”

“ _Everyone_ fucks up at interviews. That’s what they’re for. They want to see what you can do under pressure. They don’t just want you to regurgitate information calmly like some automaton. If you thought they were hard on you, that’s a good sign. That means they thought you could handle people being hard on you.”

Remus looks at Sirius, so full of determination to convince a boy he’s only met hours ago of his worth (which, unfortunately, Remus knows, isn’t going to happen; one speech can’t exactly erase seventeen years of self-loathing), and smiles, because how can he not.

“Got any tips for my next interview, then?”

“Ask lots of questions. They want to see that you’re listening—that you’re not just mucking around and throwing anything you think might stick at the problem. And they’ll be nicer too if you ask questions, I think, because it shows that you’re willing to ask for help. Oh, and don’t wear that sweater vest again.”

“What’s wrong with my sweater vest?” Remus asks defensively, even though he knows exactly what’s wrong with his sweater vest.

“Wrong color,” Sirius says with a wink. “Blue would look better on you.”

Against his best senses, Remus feels his face flush. 

“Will you be here tomorrow too? You know, to lead me to the toilet after I inevitably vomit over myself after interviews.”

Sirius shakes his head. “My last one was today.”

“Oh.” Remus feels disappointed, even though he knows he shouldn’t; after all, he’ll likely never see Sirius again, not after he gets rejected and Sirius comes to Oxford, dressed in another ridiculous suit jacket and dark jeans. 

“Don’t worry,” Sirius smiles. “I’ll see you in October, anyway. I’ll come annoy you after classes and force you to study Chinese literature with me.”

“Don’t you speak Chinese already?” 

“Well, yeah, so I’ll definitely get a first.”

Remus shakes his head. He doesn’t think he’ll ever understand Sirius. “Will you ever tell me what you’re actually studying?”

“Maybe,” Sirius smiles again, that beautiful, broad smile, and Remus wishes that the night could last forever, in this Vietnamese restaurant on High Street. He thinks that if there ever was anything nearly perfect in this world, anything worth saving, it would be that smile. He listens and laughs as Sirius regales him with more tales of his exploits at Westminster, including the time he managed to accidentally end up in the Underground half-naked at four in the morning. 

Like every night, though, it comes to an end. People start to filter out of the restaurant, slowly, and then in a torrent. It begins to rain as well; only a drizzle, but it never stays a drizzle for too long, this time of year. 

“It’s getting late,” Sirius frowns, checking his phone. “My train leaves at eight in the morning tomorrow. When’s your interview?”

“Morning too,” Remus says. “I guess they want to get us out as soon as possible.”

Sirius laughs. “They’ll never get rid of us. We’ll leave our mark here.”

“Hopefully not a mark that involves piss,” Remus says, and laughs as Sirius balks.

“I told you that in confidence!” he practically screeches. 

“You told me that in a crowded restaurant. I’m sure someone overheard.” He watches gleefully as Sirius feigns mock outrage. 

“You’re evil, Remus Lupin.”

“Never claimed to be good.”

Sirius pushes Remus playfully, smiling, and they tumble into each other. Somehow, they end up against a wall, side by side. They’re so close that they could almost kiss, Remus realizes with a start, except—

Sirius steps closer, and _oh_. “Is this okay?” he asks softly, and Remus does his best to nod enthusiastically. 

And then they’re kissing. Sirius is not Remus’s first kiss; that was Julia Hughes, at a school dance when he was fourteen. He’s not even his first kiss with a boy. But this is the first kiss to feel natural, like this was what kissing was made for—this softness, this feeling that he is finally not alone, that there is someone else who has been searching all along as well. It is warm and it is gentle and it is what Remus has wanted for the better part of the day, without knowing that he wanted it. 

“I didn’t know you liked me like that,” Remus says, because his brain can’t be expected to function after kissing Sirius in the rain at the most beautiful place in Britain. 

“I bought you bubble tea,” Sirius says. “How did you not realize after that? I don’t just buy anyone bubble tea.”

“How was I supposed to know that?”

Sirius sputters, and Remus pulls him into another kiss, because he can’t be expected to just talk when they could be kissing instead. 

Unfortunately, kissing in the rain is only romantic until the rain becomes a thunderstorm. 

“We’d better go,” Remus says glumly. Visions of perishing horribly by lightning swarm his head. Visions of _Sirius_ perishing horribly by lightning swarm his head, which is just unfair, because Sirius would never die in such a nonsensical way.

“Don’t forget me, Remus Lupin,” Sirius says. “Promise.”

“I never could,” Remus replies, with such conviction that he surprises himself. “I never could.”

* * *

Sirius is gone by the morning. Remus feels his absence more strongly than he should, for someone he’s only known a day. Before his interview, he conjures up a Sirius in his head, one who tells him to breathe, to relax, that everything will be okay. It doesn’t help as much as a real-life Sirius would, of course, but real-life Sirius is on the train back to London, back to Westminster and his friends and a life that doesn’t include Remus Lupin. 

Thankfully, his second interview goes better than his first. He understands most of the subjects the tutors bring up this time, and he makes sure to ask questions ( _to seem sufficiently interested_ , the Sirius voice in his head adds). It’s not perfect by any means, but this time, he doesn’t want to vomit, which is certainly a plus. Afterwards, he makes sure to jot down notes of the most ridiculous parts of the interview to relay to Sirius later.

Unfortunately, it’s not until he’s on the way back to Wales that he realizes that he not only doesn’t have Sirius’s phone number, but he also doesn’t even have his _last name_. He sighs. Of course the only boy—the only person—his age that he’s ever felt a remote connection to would also be a boy he knows next to nothing about. As rare as the name “Sirius” is, he doesn’t expect that he’ll find out much information about him when the only other identifying characteristics he can scrounge up are that Sirius goes to Westminster and is Singaporean, especially when he discovers that Westminster does not in fact publish its roster of students online. 

He spends the bulk of Christmas break worrying about his Further Maths marks, studying so furiously that he almost forgets when Oxford decisions are released. He stays home from school that January day, after staying up the entire night before out of sheer anxiety. _You need a break anyway,_ his mother laughs. It isn’t a very relaxing break, in any case; he spends the morning furiously refreshing UCAS Track until he falls asleep out of sheer exhaustion, waking to his mother shaking him.

“It’s here,” she whispers, holding up an envelope stamped with St. Catherine's College's seal. “Do you want to open it?”

His future lies in that envelope. He feels his stomach rise, but he forces it to clamp down and nods instead. Gently, he tears it open. 

_We are pleased to_ , he reads, stunned, and then all he lets out is a scream. His mother envelopes him in a hug, and his father rushes into his bedroom, until they’re all hugging and laughing and crying.

“I’ve got to start revising for chemistry,” Remus says, because he’s not going to take the chance of _missing his offer_ and there’s nothing else he can really say except _thank you, thank you_ , and his mother rolls her eyes. 

He falls asleep that night dreaming of Oxford, of Catz, of the Bodleian and tutorials and a glittering future. And of Sirius, because no matter what Sirius is studying—at this point, he wouldn’t be surprised if he really _did_ apply for Religion—Remus is sure he got an offer. 

* * *

October dawns sooner than he could have ever imagined, brisk and welcoming. When he steps foot on Catz’s grounds again, he could almost swear that he feels the leaves whispering a _welcome home_ , so at peace he feels. Once he’s visited his room, he leaves his parents to convey their every worry to the porter; he wanders the grounds instead, gazing at the architecture. Somehow, it fits, even though it shouldn’t, amongst all the spires and bricks. Somewhere, there’s a metaphor in that, though for once, Remus can’t be bothered to search for it. 

As he passes the clock tower, he becomes increasingly aware of whispers behind him.

“That’s your boy, isn’t it?” comes one voice, too loud to properly be a whisper, and Remus turns around, confused, and—

It’s Sirius. The voice must have come from the boy next to him, who Remus figures must be James, if the way he’s nudging Sirius knowingly is anything to go by. 

“I tried to find you,” Sirius says half-accusingly, stepping forward. “Do you not have Instagram?”

“Well, you finally found him,” James sighs. “Hopefully, you’ll stop talking about his _ridiculous sweater vests_ and his _darling smile_ —stop elbowing me, you prick!”

“I don’t have social media at all,” Remus replies, opting to ignore James’s presence altogether.

“How on Earth do you not have social media? It’s not like it’s 1980.”

“Well, I didn’t have your number or your last name, so let’s just call it even?” Remus smiles.

“Sure,” Sirius says, trying to look angry but failing, if the smile spreading across his face is anything to go by. “I told you you’d make it, by the way. Remember?”

“Of course I do.”

“Can you save the flirting for a bit later?” James calls. “We haven’t even matriculated yet.”

“No!” Sirius calls back, and Remus laughs.

James rolls his eyes. “You’re going to be the annoying ones who flirt even in lectures, aren’t you?”

“Would you ever expect less of me?” Sirius replies.

“I could hope for less,” James says. “I’m off to find Pete, at least. Don’t blame me if you two can’t find your rooms tonight because you wouldn’t stick to the schedule.”

They watch as James leaves, Sirius pulling a face behind his back. “Like he’s any better,” Sirius says. “Earlier today, he tripped over a redhead and stammered for a minute straight until she took pity on him and just left.”

Remus laughs. “By the way, what did he mean by us being that couple in lecture? Aren’t you studying Classics?”

Sirius looks down, his cheeks flooding with red. “Er, I might actually be a chemist too, and before you look at me like that, I’m sorry! It just seemed funnier at the time when I met you, and then I couldn’t find a way to stop, and you really do know a lot about chemistry and make it sound interesting, and I just wanted to listen to you talk?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Remus sighs, and smiles, because somehow, impossibly, this ridiculous boy is _his_.

**Author's Note:**

> why is remus a chemist? i thought it’d be funny, since in canon he’s apparently quite terrible at potions. but now i’m….kind of set on it? and maybe remus thinks he’s horrible at potions canonically because he’s just not as good at it? i don’t know. i’m reaching here, let me have my chemist!remus headcanons. let remus blow stuff up and spout random chemistry facts like the absolute nerd he is.
> 
> sirius is indeed chinese singaporean here. i need someone to share my love of char siu and despair of not finding Very Good char siu. 
> 
> remus shits on st. asaph a lot. apologies to anyone who actually lives in st asaph; i just searched up "small welsh towns" and picked this one randomly. he also shits on durham. that view is also not my own. another view that is not my own: remus's suspicion of papaya salad. papaya salad is terrific.
> 
> many thanks to my boyfriend, who is actually an aspiring chemist. the conversations remus and sirius have about chemistry would not have existed without his help. 
> 
> i love the fig tree metaphor from the bell jar. read it, if you haven’t.


End file.
